A Message For All The Soft People In The World

People always told me my softness would be the end of me. That showing it would mean destruction, pain and hurt and nothing but unhappiness coming my way. “Grow a thick skin. Grow a hard heart” I heard this so often growing up that I simply took it for granted that anytime I grew hurt or upset by something people would tell me I’m oversensitive, soft and the world was simply justified in taking advantage of me because somehow I was allowing it.

It seemed like the crime was entirely mine for feeling too much. The crime against me didn’t exist because my softness was the thing that allowed it. So therefore, I should sacrifice my softness at the alter of my protecting my own heart, because there is no other way. Except…there is another way.

Listen to me, soft people. Do not allow the world to make you thick skinned to the point you feel nothing. Do not allow them to turn you angry and cold just like them. Do not let them steal that goodness from inside you. You see the thing that everyone chides about you also makes you kind in a world that is rapidly losing its kindness. It allows you to see ailing children and the need to help. It allows you to see grief before opportunity. It makes you tough, tougher than the parasites who have long since lost their humanity to the idea of being superior socially, or gaining something monetary.

You are blessed, you are, because you have something other people have given up, little realising how precious it is. Your kindness is the most wonderful thing about you and it comes from the softness in your heart, from feeling too much where others feel too little, from noticing the things that other people just pass by. Your softness is an exquisite thing and one day you will find someone who celebrates it. Who fills you with joy about it. Who values your soft, kind heart. This is who you are, and you should not have to give it up.

Do not give up the flowers in your heart to replace them with stones just because the world is a hard place. The world is hard because it needs more flower hearted people, not more with hearts of stone.

Be the soft person you are. You are needed soft. I promise you, you are needed soft.